


Implexis

by iridescentmusings



Category: GOT7, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, SEVENTEEN (Band), Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: But in America, M/M, set in hpverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-01 04:37:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16277954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentmusings/pseuds/iridescentmusings
Summary: Jisung had always wondered why he'd never 'fit in', per se, with the other children his age. Aged seven, he learns just how different he is from his peers and how talented he truly is. Aged eight, he is abandoned at an orphanage by parents scared of his 'abnormality', and there meets kindred spirit Felix. When Jisung turns eleven, he is visited by a stranger bearing a letter which turns his world upside down: his acceptance letter to the Holborne Institute of Magic. There, he meets a beautiful and frustrating boy who is just as strange as he is.





	1. Introductions

**Chapter One - Introductions**

 

Jisung had always wondered why he'd never 'fit in', per se, with the other children his age. He began to notice the divide in school, when Kim Somin nearly dropped her cup of juice and she seemed far more scared than grateful when he grabbed it mid-descent. She said he'd moved too quick, and that that was 'creepy' for some reason. Jisung was only trying to help, but he stopped after that. The damage was done, however, as all the others had listened to Somin's whispers. He was only four at the time, and already isolated from his peers. Instead of having fun with others, he caught quickly onto learning to read, and devoted himself to that. Unfortunately for little Jisung, his subsequently advanced intellect kept him distanced even when his family made a fresh start thousands of miles away from the place where people associated him with being strange, or abnormal. He was simply too smart for his own good, as small children don't like those who are better than them.  
  
And so it went, until Jisung was seven. That was when he fell off his bed, yet didn't hit the floor. His eyes shot open in surprise, and he nearly screamed. He didn't want to wake his parents, though, so he stayed quiet as a mouse, suspended in thin air above his wooden floorboards. He hadn't wanted to fall, so he didn't. Curious, how that had played out. His intelligent mind began whirring with possibilities: 'I want the cup of water by my bed' he thought, and the cup wobbled, then fell to the floor. So did Jisung, and so he concluded that this thing, whatever it was, couldn't focus on two things at once yet. To hold the glass up, it had to put him down, and it wasn't yet strong enough to lift the glass. Many would have been confused, scared even, at this newfound talent. Not Jisung; he knew already that he was different, so what was one more abnormality to add to the mix?  
  
As his mother came running into the room at the noise of smashing glass, she saw Jisung lying in his bed, his face turned away from her. Assuming incorrectly that he'd merely knocked it over in his sleep, she cleared up the shattered mess from her son's floor and returned to her own slumber. The next day, Jisung stayed in his room. It was a Saturday, meaning that he had no other obligations, so by the time the sun fell behind the hills once more, he was able to summon multiple objects toward him from all across the room.

 

A year later, Jisung's dad yelled at him for not joining the basketball team as his parents explicitly instructed, and Jisung set the curtains on fire. He put the flames out as quickly as they had begun with the water from an ugly vase of wilting roses, but the damage was done. They knew, and nothing could be quite the same after that. His mother was quite taken with the idea that Jisung was possessed by the Devil, heavily religious as she was. He tried reasoning that he'd never hurt anyone with his powers, but she wouldn't listen, telling him over and over that “I won't have a son of mine consumed by sin, Han Jisung!” So his father suggested an exorcism, an idea which placated her more than any of Jisung's pleading words. The confused eight-year-old agreed to the process, lying back dutifully on his bed as Father Simmons yelled at him in Latin.

 

The next day his mother hugged him with tears in her eyes, thinking that her boy was back to normal. Jisung was so happy that he accidentally levitated the kitchen table- all of a sudden she wasn't hugging him any more, her sobs replaced by screams. "Away! Get him away. Get _it_ away!” she screamed until he ran upstairs to his room, where he could still hear her yelling. His father ducked into his room for just long enough to tell him to pack his suitcase for a journey, and then he was gone too. The boy dutifully shoved all his clothes and textbooks into the suitcase his dad had provided, then gathered up his face wash and toothbrush from the bathroom. Downstairs, his mother’s screams were softer, yet still legible. Jisung wondered what was so wrong with him being special, why it meant his mother had to hate him.

 

Soon enough, he was bundled into the back of the family car and told "Be quiet, and don't you dare do any of that funny business!”

 

He stayed dutifully silent for hours on end, only relieving his aching bladder when his father pulled up at a gas station rather than asking him to stop himself. A chocolate bar, a cheese sandwich and a bottle of orange juice was shoved into his hands as they got back into the car. "Thank y-” Jisung began to say, but was quelled by a glare from his father as they made eye contact in the rear-view mirror.

 

"Stay quiet back there," he reprimanded, and Jisung merely nodded in response, looking down at his assortment of food and drink. Greedily, he chugged down the orange juice until only a centimetre was left at the bottom. Checking that his father was focused on the road and not him, Jisung then stared intently at the bottle until, suddenly, it was full once more. Even though being able to do such a thing had made his parents hate him, a small burst of pride filled him up at the feat. He was getting better and better at controlling his powers as the days went by, and he haven't come across a single thing that he couldn't do if he worked on it for long enough. The chocolate bar and sandwich was replicated in turn until Jisung felt very full and drifted off into a jolted, uncomfortable sleep.

 

He woke up cold and wet. The night was dark and unpleasant wherever they were, and he'd just been dumped unceremoniously at the foot of some stairs. Looking to his side, he saw that his suitcase had also been deposited on the cold ground. "Daddy, what's going on?” Jisung asked weakly, his teeth beginning to chatter as the chill seeped in through his thin clothes.

 

"You'll be staying here from now on,” his father explained gruffly, looking somewhat ashamed but resolute nonetheless. "Your… _abnormality_ is scaring your mother and I; we don't want you corrupting your siblings. "

 

"But when can I come home?” Jisung asked, though he was far too clever a boy to not understand exactly what his daddy was doing.

 

He paused.

 

“I'm not, am I?” He concluded, his wide eyes accusing and full of hurt. Jisung’s shoulders slumped in defeat, and he seemed suddenly so small that his father almost bundled him back into the car. Almost, until he saw sparks dancing across his son’s fingertips, a sight which had him automatically crossing himself as he shuddered reflexively.

 

"Don't tell them where you're from, because we will be gone by the time they could get you back. This is your home now Jisung; I'm sorry," his father said, hugging him gingerly one last time and then darting back into the car like, ironically, a man possessed. A single tear trailed down Jisung’s cheek as he saw the man he had called a father speed off into the distance. Behind him, a door opened, flooding the steps in yellow light.

 

“I thought I heard a car,” a woman sighed from the doorway, her round figure obscuring most of the frame. "We had best get you in then, little man. Welcome to St Peter's Orphanage."

 

He wasn't stupid enough to revert to denial – it was loud and clear what his father had done, and why he had chosen to do so, so Jisung resolutely hauled the suitcase effortlessly up the stairs. Acting out of breath to conceal that he'd made the case temporarily weightless, he hurried to keep up with the woman as she waddled purposefully down a long corridor. "There’s a bed free in this one," she informed him with only a tinge of compassion in her wearied tone. Evidently she had to deal with situations such as his daily, so he didn't blame her for the emotional detachment.

 

"Thank you Miss," he instead responded meekly. "What should I call-how should I address you?"

 

"Matron will do nicely. Now, there is clean bedding in this closet," she explained, gesturing to a smaller door next to the entrance of his new room. "They're changed weekly, and you lot do the changing so it's your own fault if they end up unwashed,” Matron went on, and handed him a pile of crumpled linens. Presumably they were for him to make up a bed for himself.

 

"Shall I get to bed then, Matron?" Jisung asked politely, stifling a yawn with the back of one hand.

 

"Yes, I think that would be the wisest course of action,” she agreed, her body automatically yawning in response to the small boy’s actions. "I'll do the same, and we'll sort you out in the morning."

 

He nodded, turning the handle to the room he would now call home. Inside, five boys around his age – give or take a year or two – lay in bunk-beds fast asleep. There was a space on the bottom bunk of one bed, so Jisung wheeled his suitcase over to it, wincing at the loud creak of springs when he sat down after putting the sheet on it. One of his new roommates stirred in their sleep, shifting and mumbling something incoherent before settling back into undisturbed slumber. As quietly as he could, Jisung unzipped his suitcase and pulled out the pair of pyjamas he'd cleverly packed last, figuring he'd need them first. They were pastel blue with a pattern of little airplanes, and they smelled like home. He allowed himself a moment to inhale the familiar scent and then steeled himself so no traitorous tears slipped free. He couldn't afford to cry because he doubted he'd ever stop after the floodgates were opened.

 

Quickly and near silently, he changed out of his jeans and t-shirt and into his nightwear, folding them neatly and placing them on the floor. After pushing his case under the bed to eliminate the tripping hazard, he climbed under the thin covers and rested his head on a pillow which provided little cushioning on top of the hard mattress. He imagined himself happy, forcing his mind into tranquillity, and drifted slowly into a fitful sleep.

 

It must have been the early hours of the morning when his father abandoned him, as it was scarcely four hours later when an alarm began to ring loudly through the building, waking up all of the room’s occupants. The other boys started at the sight of Jisung as he sat up and began to get out of bed.

 

"Oh," he mumbled softly as he noticed the five pairs of eyes fixed on him. "Hi?"

 

"Who are _you_?” one boy asked snidely. He looked about twelve and had already developed acne so bad that his whole face was bumpy and shining an angry red.

 

"I'm Jisung, Jisung Han. And you?" He replied politely, holding out hand for the boy to shake.

 

"Billy," he answered, not shaking Jisung’s hand but rather staring at him as if he was infected with some horrible disease. "What are you, some kind of posh little fag? _‘And you?’_ ” He spat the last phrase in a high-pitched mockery of Jisung's voice. "You don't _shake hands_ with people at St Peter's, you dumb queer."

 

"Oh, sorry!" Jisung rushed to apologise, letting his proffered hand fall limply to his side. His palms were sweaty and his heart raced in fear – was this to become his reality, being mocked and tormented daily? He didn't know why he was apparently acting like a ‘posh little fag', but knew he'd have to hide such behaviour for the next eight years, as sixteen was the age he knew he be able to find somewhere else to go. Fear that he wouldn't be able to use his powers flooded through him, clouding his mind in a haze of panic broken only when one of the other boys spoke up.

 

"Stop tormenting him, Billy," reprimanded a boy who looked closer to Jisung's eight years. "We need to get ready for breakfast, anyway," he pointed out when Billy stepped forward, looking furious at the gall of the newest speaker. Jisung could tell that this boy was scared of Billy too, so his defensive words meant a lot.

 

"Thank you," Jisung whispered to him as they all scrambled to get dressed as quickly as they could. "What's your name?"

 

"No problem, and it's Felix," he answered with an awkward ruffle of his dark hair. It was clear that the both of them were somewhat inexperienced socially, which brought some small comfort to Jisung. He hoped that he could be friends with a kindred spirit such as Felix. Luck seemed to be on his side in that regard, as the other boy showed him to the large dining hall where they piled food onto their plates: each was allowed two small slices of bacon, a sausage and a blob of pale scrambled eggs plopped onto their plate with a wooden spoon. In addition, there was a table with large trays of toast, cold by the time they got to it but still filling.

 

Jisung and Felix sat together away from the other boys and talked to each other quietly. It was a nice change from being alone as he had been in Ohio. Nobody at his old school had valued simply _sitting_ and not needing to yell raucously to make themselves known. A comfortable silence fell after a few minutes of conversation, and the foundations for a friendship came to be.

 

Matron came over at the end of breakfast and led Jisung away to her office. She needed to know all about him so she could try to bring some order to his life, which was in shambles at that point. Noting down his answers as he gave them, she learnt his full name, his age, how he was doing in school and whether he had any allergies. Such basics out of the way, she opted for a more personal approach. "How are you, Jisung?" she enquired softly.

 

"Honestly, better then I should be, ma'am,” he replied honestly. "I know I should be devastated – and I am, somewhat –, but I'm able to move past it, I think. Home stopped feeling like home to me a while ago and I'm not all too surprised that my parents did this."

 

Matron looks surprised that such an intelligent answer came from an eight-year-old boy. Most adults acted that way when exposed to Jisung's mature personality – ever since he began to read, and didn't stop, he was wise beyond his years. An intake of so much literature lead to a wider vocabulary and no small amount of knowledge. "Oh," she said intelligently. "Well, I'm glad you're getting on well, Jisung. Are you ready for school tomorrow? It's here in the facility."

 

"Of course!” Jisung exclaimed. "I love school, ma'am," he added meekly after a moment, blushing at his excited outburst.

 

"Always good to hear, Jisung. You get back to enjoying your day off, now. Bright and early start tomorrow for church!"

 

Of course. It was Sunday the following day. Jisung had never been too fussed about religion, but supposed he should go along.

 

"Yes, Matron. I look forward to it,"

 

With that, she let him go and he hurried back to his room to begin unpacking. Leaving everything in the suitcase was only going to plant a subconscious idea in his mind that he might actually be leaving this place any time soon.

 

He wasn't, and he had to get used to that fact.

 

Jisung had been hoping that the room would be empty when he got back so that he could perhaps spend a few minutes practising with his powers. When he opened the door, however, he saw Felix by the windowsill. This would be perfectly normal were it not for one small thing.

 

Felix was _floating._

 

His feet were several inches above the ground, and he seemed rather confused as to how he could get down. At the noise of the opening door, he turned and saw Jisung standing there. "I, um, I can explain?" He offered up weakly. "P-please don't tell anyone about this – I'm begging you."

 

"I won’t, don't worry," Jisung reassured his new friend. "Do you know how to get down from there?"

 

"No, not at all," Felix admitted. "Billy put my book on the windowsill and it was far too high for me to get back. I jumped and just stayed in the air. Strange things like this happen to me sometimes."

 

"Well, grab the book and I'll try and pull you down," he suggested.

 

When Felix was clutching his copy of Hamlet, Jisung grabbed his ankle and tugged determinedly. The window was very high up the wall, presumably to stop the children climbing out, and Jisung wondered how Billy himself had managed to get the book up there. He supposed he must've thrown it. After twenty seconds of futile pulling, none of which was helping bring Felix back down to earth, Jisung decided on a different tactic. "Okay Felix, close your eyes and imagine yourself floating back down to me. Make getting back on the ground the only thing you want, the only thought in your head. Focus on it.”

 

Dutifully, Felix closed his eyes, scrunching them up in concentration. Slowly but surely, he began to descend until his feet brushed the ground. When his eyelids fluttered open once more, he found himself coming down with a thud of soles against concrete as he saw how far he'd moved. Jisung steadied him instinctively by grabbing onto the other boy's forearm.

 

"I did it!” Felix said dumbly, obviously shocked that Jisung's instructions had been so effective. "How did you know what I had to do?" he asked all of a sudden, the strangeness of Jisung's expertise in how to get down from floating in the air dawning upon him.

 

Deciding that a physical demonstration would be best in a situation such as this, Jisung concentrated and rose an inch off the floor, landing again with ease after a few seconds of Felix staring at him in shock. He felt a little smug that he clearly had far more control over his powers than Felix, but that feeling was far overshadowed by pure elated joy. He wasn't the only one who could do these strange things; he wasn't a freak of nature as he had assumed! If Felix also had abilities, was it so much of a stretch to wonder if there might be others? After being so alone and sheltered for his eight years of life, such a concept was more than appealing.

 

He was just about to quiz Felix, who seemed eager to do the same, when one of the other boys from their room burst into it. "There you are!" said Sammy (Jisung _thought_ that was his name, but couldn't be entirely sure). "Lunch is about to start and Matron wants everyone there."

 

Half an hour later, they cleared away the plates and hurried back, at last alone together to discuss the revelation of their abilities. "So what else can you do?" Jisung spoke first after an awkward silence spanning several minutes. Felix was on the bottom bunk opposite Jisung’s, so they set crossed-legged on their beds across from one another.

 

"Well, it isn't really a voluntary thing…" Felix trailed off, struggling to put into words what he was trying to say. "It just happens when I have spikes of emotion; I can't control it. You seem to be able to, though? That's interesting."

 

"Yeah, I just practised a lot," Jisung explained, brushing it off. "I'm sure you will be able to control your powers too," He wasn't, not entirely, but felt like Felix could do with encouragement. Perhaps the other boy _did_ have the capability for restraint, Jisung had no idea. Now that he knew that he could practice in the other's company, he began to do just that, not wasting the opportunity of none of their roommates being present. He looked down at his palm and _focused,_ a flame appearing from his skin and growing to the size of a tennis ball. Without too much thought, he lightly tossed the sphere into the air where it stayed, suspended.

 

“Wow!” Felix gasped, staring in awe at the floating orb of flame, standing from his bed and stepping closer to observe it. "What on earth is that you're keeping the fire in?”

 

"I have no idea," Jisung admitted. "I just wanted something to contain the flames when I'm not holding on, and that sort of happened?"

 

He shrugged, no further explanation possible. The door handle began to move downwards, so Jisung threw out a hand, willing the door to stay shut as he extinguished the flame. He felt quite like he was using the force, and smiled at the thought. Once everything suspicious was gone, he released the door from its invisible hold. Billy, Sammy and the other two boys, Rafe and Luke, tumbled into the room. They had obviously been throwing their body weight into the door when it was being magically held closed. They looked at Felix and Jisung suspiciously but both were lying down feigning sleep at that point.

 

"Must be the door hinge rusting again," Rafe piped up squeakily, the other boys readily agreeing with the logical explanation. Jisung had always found shelter in the cocoon of ‘logic’ that stopped regular people realising that he was a very irregular boy.

 

And so it went, day by day, week by week, month by month. Year by year, even.

 

Felix turned their maths teacher's beard luminescent yellow one day when the man refused to change his incorrect working on the board after ten-year-old Jisung had pointed out flaws in the method. One could hardly blame him – the man was so frustratingly stubborn and surely not qualified to teach. His stubbornness helped them, however, as his small-minded logic didn’t account for magic and he ignored the incident.

 

Another day a few months later, Jisung and Felix ended up being chased by two shady looking men when they snuck out of the Orphanage for the afternoon. The men had started following the two of them when they exited the sweet shop they’d visited on their excursion, gradually getting closer until the boys were forced to run to get away. After making a turning which led to a dead end, they had nowhere to go. Desperately, Jisung grabbed Felix and concentrated on getting away, screwing his eyes tightly shocked and shivering in fear. There was an abrupt sensation like being squeezed through tubing, and he suddenly felt a cool breeze against his skin.

 

"J-Jisung?" Felix stammered. "What just happened?"

 

Jisung opened his eyes. They were no longer in the dead end alleyway with the two beady-eyed men stalking towards them, but were instead on a hilltop in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. Beneath the hill lay a vast expanse of fields. The sun shone faintly through the grey clouds scattered across the colourless sky, and he expected that it would snow soon. "Well," he laughed drily and somewhat hysterically, his emotions still running amok in the aftermath of their ordeal. "I guess we escaped."

 

Felix burst into tears, a detail he would later fervently deny, and pulled Jisung into a hug. The boy was shaking like a leaf and was so pale Jisung wondered if he might pass out. Still holding Felix, he focused on _warmth,_ feeling it as it spilled from his fingertips and cocooned the other boy in the invisible bubble of heat, letting it shroud himself also. Felix stopped shivering.

 

"Better?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"Thanks."

 

Jisung nodded in acknowledgement. "No problem. Are you ready to try and get back to the orphanage, then?” He was still hugging the other boy, and tried to focus on them being transported to the orphanage in the same way they had arrived on the hilltop. After 30 seconds of nothing happening, however, he had to concede that perhaps a different method of transportation was in their best interest. As he'd found with many ‘more difficult’ uses of his powers, someone only possible at first with extreme spikes of emotion to power them. The fire, for example, had required months of practice to control at the level he could now do without batting an eye. Teleporting, or whatever the hell it was he done, would simply require work.

 

After a short walk to a farmhouse at the bottom of the hill, Felix managed to charm a farmer's wife into convincing her husband to drive them to the nearest bus station. Somehow they had ended up in Connecticut, a five hour bus journey from New York, the state in which the orphanage was located. Jisung wondered whether that was a coincidence, or teleportation had a limited distance. Felix had always had a way with persuasion Jisung had never managed to match, demonstrated again when the ruddy-faced farmer said gruffly “Get home safely, kids," and handed Felix a crumpled handful of bills to pay for their bus ride. It seemed the sob story about running away from the orphanage had been so expertly told by the other boy that even the grumbling farmer had taken pity on the two bedraggled children.

 

Delays and pit stops incorporated, it took six hours to arrive at the bus station in New York that was nearest to the Orphanage. The two of them hurried off; it was nearing five in the afternoon and the evening meal was at six. What was intended to be a quick excursion to get sweets in the morning had ended up consuming the entire day. They would probably be able to get away with having missed lunch, but Matron would definitely clock their absence were they to not show up for dinner. Thankfully, with a mixture between jogging and running, they scampered back through the side entrance at a quarter to. Jisung didn't know if he should be relieved or hurt by the fact that nobody noticed that they went missing most of the day.

 

"Boys!" Matron’s voice came out of nowhere as she turned a corner. Jisung jumped, and the lightbulb above him flickered out. "Oh, I'll have to get that fixed,” she muttered to herself. "Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. Where are you going?"

 

"Just back to our room, Matron," Felix said sweetly, and Jisung could feel the power in the air around him as the other boy _pushed_ at Matron's suspicious feelings until they were gone, compelled away.

 

"Very well John, Carl," They didn't bother correcting her. In a place like this, it was better if Matron didn't know their names, as it meant they were staying out of trouble. Matron knew Billy's name, and the names of kids like Billy. "Dinner's in fifteen—don't be late!”

 

"Of course not," Felix said, and Jisung suddenly felt overwhelmingly as if his friend could do no wrong, that he was the picture of childish innocence. He recognised, however, that it was Felix's powers making him think that. He pushed the feeling surrounding his mind and felt it dissipate. They walked away, concealing bags of sweets inside a hole in the wall by the side of Jisung's bed. Jisung had accidentally blown a hole in the wall with his power one day, and they had taken the opportunity to create a hiding space for anything they didn't want the other boys stealing.

 

Dinner was a torrid affair in which Matron spoke to them all about the upcoming Christmas season and how it was when the Orphanage received the bulk of the charitable donations. She stressed that they needed to be on their best behaviour when said charitable donors visited. Maybe, she said, some might even be looking to _adopt._ The eyes of the few new additions to the Orphanage brightened, whereas Jisung had to stifle a yawn. At most, perhaps three of the youngest children would be adopted. Past the age of five, there wasn't a chance in hell of someone taking them home, not without anything short of a miracle.

 

It was November 30th, Matron told them, so that meant that the visitors with their saccharine smiles and bill-stuffed wallets would begin coming from tomorrow onwards. Though perhaps she didn't put it quite like that. Nonetheless, Jisung knew that it was the subtext behind her positive words, the same speech she gave each year. This was to be Jisung’s fourth Christmas at the Orphanage, as he'd arrived a few days after his eighth birthday and he had turned eleven in the September just gone by, along with Felix just one day apart. Eleven was the age that he'd finally start going to the local middle school with Felix, though due to how early in the school year his birthday was, it'd be another nine months before they'd start there.

 

"Can't wait for an inevitable adoption this Christmas season," Felix remarked sarcastically from beside him at the table.

 

"Me too,” Jisung replied equally drily. "Nothing potential parents are looking for quite so much as eleven-year-olds."

 

"Quite."

 

Matron shushed the dining hall as a whole, Felix and Jisung not the only ones feeling restless, and so they quietened down for the remaining twenty minutes of her speech. When she finally finished, it was quarter past seven. They were allowed the next forty-five minutes for 'recreational activities', which to most meant playing games in the dining hall once the tables were cleared to the sides of the room. To Jisung and Felix, it meant retreating to the sanctity of their room for a while before the others came and disrupted the calm. That time passed in the blink of an eye, what with the fun they had had practising. Felix was getting very good at wilfully levitating objects and Jisung was alternating between helping his friend and controlling a small tornado, making it spin in one corner of the room. Felix had neither Jisung's ability to create fire nor control wind, but was making steady progress in other areas. His capability for persuasion, for example, left Jisung behind in the dust.

 

When their roommates bundled into the room, sweaty and red-faced from whatever the sport they had been playing in the dining hall, Jisung had heard them coming. There was, therefore, no swirling wind or floating textbooks. Instead, the others teased them for studying, as both sat on their beds with school work spread out in front of them. Billy and his friends suspected nothing, as always.

 

The next day, Jisung and Felix had a visitor. Neither had had one before, so they were suitably suspicious that one was there for both of them. The visitor was a tall, bespectacled man with a wiry physique and bright blue eyes which were magnified slightly by his glasses, giving him an owlish look. He wore pinstripe trousers, a spotted red and white shirt, a lime green tie and a hot pink waistcoat. Jisung didn't know much about fashion, but knew enough to know that such an ensemble was very peculiar. Matron certainly looked perplexed by it as she explained to them that the man was called “Professor Fairweather,” and that he was at the Orphanage to talk about a scholarship both boys apparently qualified for. She sent them off to one of the facility’s classrooms to talk to the professor, who was smiling kindly at them both.

 

Jisung was suspicious, and voiced his suspicions the second Fairweather had closed the door behind him. "How is it that two boys who happened to be at the same Orphanage and are coincidentally best friends both qualify for a scholarship at a school I've never heard of before?" he questioned all at once, narrowing his eyes at the man. Felix nodded next to him, not as assertive but still backing up his friend.

 

"You're an astute one, Mr Han," Fairweather remarked with a dry chuckle. "Very well, you're right. This is no coincidence,"

 

With no warning, he pulled a stick of wood from his pocket and held it in the air with a murmured “Lumos Maxima!” Suddenly, the dingy classroom with its flickering, failing light bulb was flooded with bright white light. The boys leapt back in shock and the professor seemed amused by their gobsmacked expressions. Until Jisung stood protectively in front of Felix and conjured a ball of fire into his palm, holding his hands towards the strange man, that is.

 

"Who are you really, and how did you do that?!" Jisung demanded to know. Felix took the time Jisung spoke to use his power to move the desk in front of them, providing a barrier of sorts between them and Fairweather. Felix had never moved something so heavy before, and Jisung smiled proudly at his friend for a brief second, despite the circumstances.

 

"Perhaps in this case, actions shouldn't have spoken louder than words," Fairweather remarked, mostly to himself. "I apologise for scaring you, but most require a demonstration before they're willing to believe me. However, I was telling the truth, I _am_ a professor. I teach at the Holborne Institute, a School of Magic.”

 

"Magic?" Felix breathed from behind Jisung. "It’s magic, what Jisung and I can do?"

 

"Yes, Mr Lee," Fairweather affirmed. "Though your friend here seems to also be in control of a very rare branch of power."

 

"What do you mean?" Jisung asked. His voice was softer, less accusatory. Discovering that there was a whole community of people with powers wasn't greatly surprising in the grand scheme of things – he would have been stupid to assume that he and Felix were the only two in the world. The prospect of a _school_ of magic, however, was something else entirely. Jisung had always yearned for more knowledge on what he was, what he could do, and it seemed like there was now a whole wealth of information just beyond his fingertips.

 

"You possess elemental magic, Mr Han, which is thus far unheard of for someone of non-magical descent. Headmistress Wycombe will be most excited. One of you in a century is a rarity, yet alone two in the same decade!" Fairweather exclaimed with a wide smile.

 

“Two? But I thought you said Felix wasn't-"

 

"Oh no, my boy! Not Mr Lee. We have a student who started this past September with abilities such as your own, though not exactly the same. Holborne hasn't had an elemental in centuries and now we have two!" The professor gesticulated wildly in his excitement as he spoke. Jisung was sure that the man didn't intend to treat him as such, but he felt a bit like a prize that had been won by his potential new school. "Usually it would be me that would take you to get your supplies, but I feel that Headmistress Wycombe would prefer to take you, Jisung. I could take Felix now?…" he trailed off.

 

"No.” Jisung said at once, firmly. "We go together or not at all,” Again, Felix nodded decisively beside him.

 

"Well, it's settled, then," Fairweather told them. "Her schedule permitting, Headmistress Wycombe will be around to pick you up either today or tomorrow," He turned as if to leave, then stopped suddenly, pulling two letters from a pocket which looked far too small to hold them. "Oh! You will be needing these of course,"

 

He handed them over. Jisung’s was addressed to _'Mr J. Han, Room 22, St Peter's Orphanage, New York',_  Felix's identical asides from his name. "Thank you," Felix responded automatically, sitting down at a table with Jisung to read the heavy letters.

 

"I'll be off, then," Fairweather announced, turning on the spot and disappearing. It showed how accustomed the two boys were to strange circumstances that they didn't even flinch.


	2. Headmistress Wycombe, and Other Affairs

**Chapter Two- Headmistress Wycombe, and Other Affairs.**

 

_"I'll be off, then," Fairweather announced, turning on the spot and disappearing. It showed how accustomed the two boys were to strange circumstances that they didn't even flinch._

 

_\----------------------------------_

 

Jisung broke the blue wax seal on the envelope and pulled it open, letting the letter fall onto the wooden table before him.

 

_Dear Mr Han,_

 

_On behalf of the Holborne Institute of Magic, I am pleased to inform you that you are eligible to study at our distinguished centre for education. Upon arrival you will be sorted into one of four colleges: Sapientiae, Audentia, Callidus or Clemens. Your college will determine where in the Institute your sleeping quarters are located, who will share your classes, and which teams you have the opportunities to join in inter-college sporting activities, among other things. If you have any additional abilities, e.g. you are a Metamorphmagus or Natural Legilimens or other, please alert the teacher assigned to help you collect your school supplies or a parent/guardian, and the Institute will arrange for extra tutelage._

 

_We look forward to welcoming you to our ranks,_

 

_Yours sincerely,_

 

_Professor A. Wycombe, Headmistress and Legilimency Tutor._

 

Scrawled beneath her name was an intricate signature and a blue stamp with the same design as the wax seal: a serpent coiled around the trunk of a tall tree, with the words _‘f_ _idei in virtute’_ beneath it. He assumed that it was a crest to represent the Holborne Institute. Beneath his acceptance letter was another piece of parchment, this one covered with a bullet point list.

 

_Students entering their first year will require:_

 

 

  * __5 sets of school robes, dark blue.__


  * _2 sets of casual robes, black._


  * _1 set of dress robes, colour at student's discretion._


  * _1 pointed hat, dark blue._


  * _1 copy "A Guide to Expert Potion-Making" by Meredith Stratford._


  * _1 copy "Transfiguration for Beginners” by Emmeline Shrike._


  * _1 copy "Charms, Volume I" by Arminius Colstone._


  * _1 copy "Defensive Strategies" by Clemence Moran._


  * _1 copy "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" by Newt Scamander._


  * _1 copy "Magical history 1320-1471" by Richmond Fairweather._


  * _1 copy “Arithmetic Procedures” by Paloma Ypres_


  * _1 copy "Runes, an Instructive Guide" by Verity Westwing._


  * _1 copy "The universe, a comprehensive study aide" by Vincent Braus-Hansen._


  * _1 set brass scales._


  * _1 set glass phials._


  * _1 cauldron, copper._


  * _4 stirring rods, steel._


  * _1 telescope._


  * _25 quills._


  * _10 ink pots._


  * _10 sheaves of parchment._


  * _1 wand._


  * _1 pet (optional, ask at shop for list of banned magical creatures if unsure)_



 

 

Jisung put down his letter and the accompanying list, waiting patiently for Felix to finish. When he had, they sat in silence for a minute longer, struggling to process all the new information that they have been given. There was an actual school where they would learn to control their powers, instructed by, surely, experts in each field, rather than having to teach themselves. Jisung felt elated – this was everything he could possibly want. "You doing okay with all this?” he asked his friend.

 

"Yeah I, actually– no? I mean, it's also crazy and so all at once, you know? I didn't expect there to be a whole school for people like this, like us," Felix admitted.

 

"I expected more like us, but not so organised," Jisung agreed. "At least you won't need me as a teacher anymore. I imagine the guys at Holborne will do a better job."

 

"So, it's agreed then?” Felix asked, turning to look at his best friend. “We’re definitely doing it? I'll come with you if you go, but I'm sure as hell not going there without you," he told him. "It's all new to me and I don't want to do something like this alone."

 

"Are you kidding me?" Jisung exclaimed, laughing. "Of course I'm going! We’d have to be raving mad to miss out on an opportunity like this!"

 

Spontaneously, Felix hugged him, and they jumped up and down excitedly, whooping with joy. For few precious moments, Jisung felt the carefree happiness of a normal boy their age. He beamed, showing his teeth with how widely he smiled.

 

Matron knocked on the door and then let herself in, looking around in confusion. "Hello, Logan, Chad," she greeted them. "Where did the professor go?"

 

"Oh, he left, you must've missed him," Jisung half-lied. The man had left, indeed, but not via a door.

 

"That's funny," she mused. "I've been in the front of the building whole time... also, why is that desk there?"

 

"Maybe he went out the back?" Felix offered up to calm her suspicion, smiling innocuously.

 

"Good point, Karl," Matron thanked him. "You to run along now–" she began to say, forgetting the desk issue, but turned as a white-gloved hand tapped her shoulder politely.

 

"If I may interrupt?" an unimposing, delicate female voice said from behind Matron’s vast figure.

 

"Who're you?” Matron asked in confusion, spinning round to face the woman, who took the opportunity to step through the door.

 

She was tall and willowy, a stark contrast to Matron, who was as short and rotund as could be. The woman was dressed in a pale peach, ankle length sundress, which was out of place in December, with a thick white fur jacket and white heeled ankle boots. Her eyes were baby blue, and her blonde hair curled down to the middle of her back in perfect ringlets. If Jisung had to hazard a guess, he'd place her age at around 30. Her lips were rouged and her cheeks delicately flushed with makeup.

 

"Hello," she greeted them. "My name is Headmistress Wycombe, headteacher at the Holborne Institute, and I suppose you two young men are Jisung and Felix?" They nodded somewhat dumbly, awestruck by her beauty. It wasn't that Jisung found himself attracted to her, but she was like a work of art, an angel, perhaps. "Wonderful!" she exclaimed cheerily, smiling. "Well, I'm here to take the boys to collect the school supplies."

 

"Why couldn't that Fairweather bloke take ‘em?” Matron questioned Wycombe.

 

"Oh, Richmond had to attend to some affairs back at the Institute," Wycombe explained easily. "So I've stepped in. We have a lot to do before the day is done, so we’ll be off now, boys."

 

They stepped forward eagerly, looking to Matron for permission. She grumbled her assent, and they rushed past to catch up with Wycombe who was already heading down the hallways towards the front door with long strides. By the door there was a wall of coats all hung up and the two boys grabbed theirs from their respective hooks. It was a relief to be all bundled up when they stepped into the freezing wind outside the Orphanage. The cold nipped at their exposed faces, making their eyes water.

 

"Are you cold, dears?" Wycombe enquired, looking concernedly at the two shivering children. Jisung tried to tell her that he was fine, but his teeth were chattering too much for him to get the words out. "I guess that answers my question,” She smiled, muttered "Calidum Aeres,” and suddenly he was no longer cold. It was like when he'd warmed himself and Felix after the teleportation, yet she didn't seem to have to concentrate anywhere near as much as him to achieve it. The warmth felt different, also. On the hill, the feeling had come from inside, but now it felt like the air around him had heated up instead. Interesting – he supposed his warmth came from the ‘elemental' powers he apparently possessed, whereas this was sourced from an incantation. He'd have to test out his many theories about the pros and cons of incantations versus elemental magic once he was equipped with a wand.

 

"So, Jisung!" Wycombe blurted out, seemingly unable to contain herself. "You're an elemental, or so my colleague tells me. Which elements can you control, or is it just the one?"

 

The tall professor looked like she was about to burst from sheer anticipation. Jisung assumed she must already know about the fire, but he still told her just in case. "Fire, Headmistress, and Air.”

 

 _“Ignis et Ventus!”_ she exclaimed. "Perfect!"

 

"Um, headmistress?" Jisung asked. "Why is that perfect?"

 

"Oh, it's just amazing that you can control _two_ of the elements, my dear boy,” She smiled, the sight as beautiful as ever. "It is incredibly rare, even more so than the mere possession of elemental abilities."

 

Jisung was beginning to get the feeling that Wycombe seemed to find everything about him extraordinary. It was quite a step up from being belittled for his intellect at the Orphanage and cast from his family for his powers, but he wasn't sure how he felt about it. It was all so foreign to him. He'd known that he was special in comparison to people without powers, but hadn't known that he was gifted even beyond the ‘norm’ of people with abilities. Something inside him was pleased to be unique. Another part of him had hoped to blend into the background; he was smart enough to realise how unlikely that was any more.

 

They reached an alleyway, the nearest to the Orphanage, and turned into it. Wycombe looked all around them to check that there was nobody in sight, then grabbed both boys by the wrist, turned on the spot and disappeared, taking them with her. They popped back into existence a second later in a large marble room. "This is the Apparition Centre for the town of Holborne, boys," she explained to them as she began to stride forward once more. Felix looked a little queasy, more than a little queasy in fact, but followed suit. Jisung felt slightly dizzy but otherwise alright, so did the same, his smaller legs having to work double the amount that Wycombe’s did just to keep up.

 

“What we j-just did, that was ‘apparition’?” Felix stammered. He was looking so shaken that Jisung awkwardly patted his back in what he hoped was a reassuring fashion while at the same time making a mental note to look up apparition, as it was surely what he’d done to get them to the countryside.

 

"Yes. It's one of the four main modes of wizarding transport: apparition, broomsticks, portkeys and flue,” she explained patiently. "A portkey is a bit like apparition, but is controlled by an object you hold onto rather than your own individual magic, and flue is by fireplace.”

 

By fireplace? That seemed illogical to Jisung, what with the likelihood of getting soot on his clothes. Though, he reasoned, there was probably a spell to clean things. His swirling thoughts were interrupted by Wycombe stopping somewhat abruptly in front of them. The ‘Apparition Centre’ had been located at the dead-end of another alley, a long thin street with nothing on either side of it but soot-stained brick. They had reached the end of it, which opened into a bustling town square. One side of the square was taken up almost completely by a vast marble building, and it seemed like Wycombe was heading in that direction.

 

The street was paved with grey stone, and covered in a soft dusting of snow. Looking up, Jisung saw that the sky was appropriately bleak, a washed out white. No snow was falling at that moment, but he expected it to start up again soon enough. In the centre of the square, a large statue of a Pegasus stood proudly on a pedestal, snow gathered on top of its outstretched wings. They walked past the monument on their way to the large marble building, and saw a plaque beneath it that read _‘hope’_ in embossed silver lettering. "That was commissioned after the defeat of Dark Lord Grindelwald at the hands of Albus Dumbledore,” Wycombe remarked, seeing the boys looking at it. "You’ll learn all about that in your history lessons in third year."

 

Jisung met Felix's eyes and the other boy smiled widely at him; history had always been his friend's favourite lesson. They reached the marble building, passing the pillars at the entrance and proceeding into the lobby, which was in itself the size of the entire orphanage, Jisung reckoned. Wycombe strode to the side of the lobby, along which was a great many desks. At each desk sat either someone human or someone decidedly… not. The non-humans were small and somewhat humanoid in stature, but had beady eyes and sharp, pointed teeth. Wycombe muttered quietly “These are goblins- be polite, they know how to hold a grudge,” as she stepped in front of one desk.

 

The goblin finished the calculations he was doing on a long roll of parchment before he looked up. “Ah, Headmistress Wycombe- always a pleasure,” he greeted her with what could possibly be interpreted as a smile. It looked like he had bitten into a lemon but was pleased about it. Jisung was kind of terrified by the sight. “How may I assist you?”

 

“Grapclaw, the pleasure is mine,” Wycombe politely responds with a short incline of her head to show respect. “We need to be shown to the Holborne student vault and open vaults for these two young men. It would also be most agreeable if Mr Han here,” she placed a hand on Jisung’s shoulder, “Could have an ancestry test.”

 

This was news to both Jisung and Felix, who looked at each other in utter bemusement. “Ancestry test?” Felix whispered from the side of his mouth. “Why the hell would you need that?”

 

“Well Fairweather did say that it was unheard of for an elemental to come from a non-magical line- perhaps it has something to do with that?” Jisung suggested in a ghost of a murmur. Somehow Wycombe still heard him- she must have somehow enhanced senses, he concluded.

 

“Yes, Jisung, it’s for that reason exactly,” she affirmed, nodding at him. “You really are a bright young man- both of you are, in fact.”

 

“Thank you ma’am,” Jisung responded automatically, having been told as such by visitors to the orphanage for years now.

 

Bright young men don’t get adopted, however, as they scare adults with low intellect who don’t want to feel inferior in comparison to a child. He knew logically that being smart would do much more for his future than an adoptive or foster family, but it still hurt him to think about how unwanted he had been for the majority of his life. Others in his position might hate his powers for ruining everything with his family, yet he couldn’t. He loved his abilities and wouldn’t trade them in for anything in the world; he couldn’t imagine ever giving them up.

 

“I will take you to the vaults, Headmistress Wycombe. This way please,” the goblin, Grapclaw, instructed them as he hopped down from the raised seat behind the desk and headed off towards one of many doors along the wall. There was no door handle, and in lieu of unlocking it with a key, Grapclaw placed his hand on the wood. It glowed red, then flickered to green and creaked open as he pushed it. Beyond the door was a long corridor stretching further than Jisung’s eyes were able to comprehend, and on the floor was what looked like a railway track. Grapclaw whistled and a cart came hurtling towards them at breakneck speed from a great way away. It came closer and closer, all the while showing no signs of slowing down, and Jisung braced himself, scared that it would come flying off the tracks where they ended a few metres away from the group of them and collide fatally. He stepped closer to Felix and unknowingly created a shield of such strength that it had Wycombe raising her eyebrows in astonishment. She said nothing to alert him to her shock, however, and he was too engrossed in the moment to notice. In reality there was no chance of the cart hitting him, not that Jisung could quite convince himself of that until it skidded to a halt before them.

 

Grapclaw clambered into the front and the three humans followed suit, gripping onto the cart’s sides tightly as it began to trundle along slowly. “Vault 348,” Grapclaw commanded, and it hurtled off, their surroundings becoming a nauseating blur of faint lights and darkness. Jisung wanted to throw up but had nothing in his stomach to vomit, Felix looking similarly queasy beside him from what he could see in the dim, flickering light. When, at last, the cart drew to a halt in front of one of many nondescript doors, Grapclaw laughed as he saw the two swaying children with green-tinged faces. “You are lucky not to travel in one of the European branches of this bank, children,” he said condescendingly. “They are not nearly so modern and do not travel in straight lines as this track does.”

 

“God bless America then, cause I couldn’t even handle this,” Felix whispered somewhat hazily, sending Jisung into a fit of giggles- it was the first time Wycombe had seen the boy act his age. The children waited in the cart, trying to steady their stomachs while Wycombe and Grapclaw entered the vault, returning a minute later with the headmistress holding a pouch of clinking coins.

 

“Grapclaw’s office,” the goblin directed once back in the cart, and it whizzed off once more at what felt like lightspeed to poor Jisung. His head spinning once more, this time they all exited the cart as it stopped outside a larger oak door. “In,” he told them shortly, pressing his hand to the door and pushing it open. Inside was a small room, sparsely furnished with a desk and four chairs. The humans of the group sat in the three in front as Grapclaw seated himself in the higher one behind, the raised chair making him able to peer down at them unnervingly.

 

Grapclaw slid a piece of parchment over to Jisung and to Felix, then pushed a knife across the table and looked at them expectantly. Ten drawn out seconds of silence followed before Wycombe spoke up for them. “They’re from a no-maj orphanage, Grapclaw; I’m afraid you’ll have to explain the procedure.”

 

The goblin huffed somewhat like a spoilt teenage girl who’d just been denied her pocket money, which was an odd sound to come from such an otherwise intimidating creature. “Very well… if I must. To activate your accounts I will require a drop of blood on the parchment. It’s standard procedure so you can gain entry to your private vaults. This particular parchment will also reveal if you have any wizarding ancestry, as requested by your headmistress. I have given you both the same parchment so you may both find this out, although Headmistress Wycombe did only ask for Mr Han to have the test. Any questions?”

 

Jisung was bursting with questions but he held them in, knowing that he would be able to research to his heart’s content instead without bothering the frankly terrifying goblin. He shook his head, and saw Felix do the same from the corner of his eye. Taking the knife in hand, he pricked the pad of his index finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the thick yellow parchment. It disappeared into it and was replaced by cursive text, faint at first but rapidly becoming clearer until a list was displayed.

 

_Jisung Han, born September 12th 1980 in Incheon, South Korea._

 

_Heir to Houses of Ji and Mun_

 

_Vault worth:_

 

_Ji: 2100 dragots_

 

_Mun: 75 dragots_

 

_All inheritances are to be received when the heir is of age, and cannot be accessed until such an age._

 

Jisung looked at Felix’s parchment, which showed only his friend’s name, date of birth and original hometown in Australia. It seemed Jisung was the only one with magical inheritances; he felt sorry for his friend, but luckily Felix didn’t seem too disappointed. Jisung trusted, therefore, that he was fine with it as his friend was somewhat of an open book emotionally. “I guess Fairweather was right,” Felix pointed out with a smile.

 

“I knew it! _Elementals_ simply don’t come from no-maj families,” Wycombe declared, seeming happy with the news of Jisung’s distant relatives. “You’re related to two families which have otherwise died out, meaning there must have been some secret squibs cast out which have eventually resulted in you, Jisung,” she explained.

 

“What’s a squib?” asked Felix.

 

“It means someone from an otherwise magical family who lacks the ability to perform magic. They are often thrown out and typically disowned, though in the case of Jisung’s ancestors they must not have been fully disowned as their heir still has the means to inherit,” Wycombe replies. “Anyway! We must be getting on with today’s tasks if we can possibly hope to complete them all. Grapclaw will set up your accounts and you two will be able to withdraw money next year for school supplies.”

 

One harrowing cart journey later, the three of them left Grapclaw to his work and exited the bank, heading to the first of many shops: the book store, ‘Rodney & Rodger’. The shop sounded rather like it should be the title of a 1940s comedy show, but Wycombe informed them that the names of Rodney and Rodger were well established in the Wizarding community of America.

 

Jisung’s eyes widened in awe as he walked into the bookstore. He was surrounded by literature of all shapes and sizes. Such an environment was heaven to the inquisitive-minded boy who yearned for knowledge more than he did food or water. “I’ll grab the schoolbooks if you wanna have a general browse, Ji?” Felix offered, but Wycombe spoke up before he could accept.

 

“Don’t worry about that, Mr Lee,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I’ll see to that myself while you boys have a look around. You have a budget of ten dragots each for extracurricular reading so don’t worry about the cost.”

 

It wasn’t long before Jisung was exiting the store clutching a bag full of books, his fuller than Felix’s because his best friend had given up some of his budget to help with Jisung’s insatiable thirst for information. In Jisung’s bag were: “ _Wizarding Customs: The No-Maj Guide”, “A History of Holborne Town”, “Wizarding Court in America”, “A Guide To Obscure Poisons and Their Remedies”, “Household Spells and Their Practical Applications”, “The Holborne Institute: A Summary”, “Potion Ingredients and Their Reactive Properties”, “The Reign of Gellert Grindelwald”, “A Detailed Account of the Goblin Riots of 1678”, “The Tales of Beedle the Bard”_ and _“The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts”_. Felix had a fair few other titles that Jisung would inevitably end up borrowing and reading back to back.

 

“You don’t have to lug around the weight like that, Lix: remember how I showed you?” Jisung asked quietly when he saw his friend being dragged down by the fruits of their shopping.

 

“Oh yeah!” Felix exclaimed, evidently having forgotten in the moment that he could lighten the load. He scrunched up his eyes in concentration and visibly relaxed when the bag was relieved of its weight. “Thanks for the reminder, I forget we can do that sometimes.”

 

“Easy mistake to make- I forget all the time,” Jisung reassured his friend with a smile. They both knew he didn’t, but it was the thought that counted.

 

“Did you just make your book-bag lighter, Felix?” Wycombe asked as if she hadn’t been blatantly listening in to their conversation as per usual.

 

“Yeah,” Felix responded nonchalantly. Doing so was normal for the two boys; it was a tactic they’d used frequently in and out of the orphanage, and had been practising for over three years.

 

“What?” Jisung asked at the shocked look on Wycombe’s delicate features. “Is that not normal?”

 

It hadn’t occurred to Jisung that his and Felix’s mastery of some aspects of their powers might not be standard; all they’d known of their abilities for years was what they’d taught themselves, so there was no average to compare with what they could do. True, they were likely more motivated than most kids their age, but the gap couldn’t be that great, surely?

 

“Wandless and wordless spells aren’t taught until fifth year!” Wycombe told them excitedly, practically rubbing her hands at the thought of two prodigies.

 

Oh. _Wonderful._

 

“We’re not so far advanced, I bet,” Jisung countered. “We’ve been working stuff out as we go along and we don’t know any spells or wand movements at all,”

 

“True,” Wycombe acknowledged. She deflated only slightly, just the same. They’d reached the Apothecary and were stepping over the threshold. “But what you _have_ done without trained tutelage is still incredible. I expect great things from you two. We’ll need two of the first year set, Aisling, if you please,” Her last sentence was directed towards the middle-aged woman who Jisung assumed was the owner of ‘Holborne Apothecary’. She nodded and rummaged around behind the till until she found two pre-packaged tins of potions ingredients and exchanged them with Wycombe for several coins. Felix ducked his head and blushed, unaccustomed to praise, whereas Jisung -though equally deprived of validation- smiled politely at his soon to be headmistress in response.

 

Next on the agenda was a shop titled _‘Magicale Creatures’_. Funnily enough, Jisung managed to work out the store’s purpose before entering it, yet he was still surprised at the variety of its contents. It was far larger on the inside, much like the police box from a show Jisung had seen a couple of times on the orphanage’s television but couldn’t remember the name of for the life of him. The walls were covered completely, floor to ceiling, with containers holding animals of all colours and creeds. In the one nearest to him, an acid green snake was hissing fire. In another, a creature that looked quite like a platypus was lying in a heap, snoring softly.

 

Noticing Jisung’s eyes on the snake, Wycombe clarified “That is most certainly on the list of banned pets at the school, Mr Han.”

 

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking about getting one, ma’am!” Jisung assured her. “It was just interesting, is all,” he continued, moving forward to look at a little creature that looked like a fluffy white pom-pom with deep grey eyes, two chicken-like legs and a tiny beak. It seemed innocent enough until he got too close, at which point it turned a violent shade of red all over and promptly started attacking the glass panel separating them, screeching gutturally. He took a hurried step back and knocked into Felix in his haste.

 

“Sorry!” he apologised at once, but his friend was too enthralled by a cage containing a midnight-black kitten to notice him, fingers against the glass as the kitten batted the other side with its tiny paws.

 

Felix turned imploring eyes on Wycombe, who seemed less affected than most by his powers of persuasion, but still nodded and told him that he could have it. Jisung was far more interested by the cages near the counter, which held owls of a wide variety. He was most drawn to the smallest of the cages, in which sat a tiny little owl, perhaps seven inches tall with wide yellow eyes. It cocked its head as he drew nearer to him, and let out a screech that sounded like a knife being sharpened. Though wincing slightly at the harsh sound, Jisung was enchanted.

 

“Why are there so many owls here, Headmistress?” Felix enquired.

 

“We use them to carry letters- far faster than no-maj postal services. Handy little things, owls,” Wycombe responded. “Is that the one you want, Jisung?”

 

“Yes please,” Jisung confirmed, nodding furiously. He’d never had a pet of his very own.

 

“That’s a northern saw-whet owl,” she informed him. “A good choice.”

 

Wycombe attracted the attention of Mrs Epora, the owner of the shop, and the young woman retrieved both the kitten and the owl from their respective cages with thick leather gloves protecting her hands, transferring them to carrying containers. The owl required a cage also, and Wycombe purchased a large amount of food for good measure, shrinking all the extras and putting them in Felix’s bag as it had more room. “We’ll collect them in half an hour, Verity,” she told the shopkeeper, who nodded her understanding and brought the carrying containers to the back of the shop, Wycombe taking that as the cue to leave and continue with their shopping.

 

The penultimate store they visited sold them their cauldrons, stirring rods, scales and glass phials, all of which Wycombe shrunk down to fit in the bag with their books. After they retrieved their parchment, quills and ink from ‘Bacillum's’, only one shop was left on the agenda: ‘La Velle’s’, the wand shop. Jisung could see Felix quivering with excitement and felt his own body reacting similarly to the flood of anticipation consuming his every thought. Getting a wand at last would, in Jisung’s eyes, solidify the experience as ‘real’.

 

The shop looked like it had been there for longer than most in the town, the bricks weathered by time and the door heavy and old-fashioned. To get inside, they had to turn a wrought-iron ring rather than a modern door handle, and standing in the store felt like being transported back three hundred years. They heard a shuffling of feet from the back room, drawing nearer until a hunched figure entered the room. She looked like the definition of a ‘crone’, wizened and haggard with wind-beaten skin and a wart on her nose. Jisung half expected her to cackle at any given moment.

 

“Arabella,” she greeted Wycombe, nodding at the slim woman who towered over her. “I haven’t seen you lower yourself to introducing students to the magical world for many a year.”

 

“Eugenia, blunt as ever I see,” Wycombe retorted, prickling at the old woman’s attitude. “One would hope you would mellow with age but my prayers have fallen on deaf ears, so it seems.”

 

“Indeed, my dear,” La Velle spat. “Now,” she turned to the boys with a toothless smile that made both shudder. “You’ll be needing your wands,” she said, moving closer to Felix and looking him dead in the eyes. He tried to back off but the wall was directly behind him, so he stood there squirming under her gaze. She appraised him for thirty seconds, give or take a few, then snapped her fingers, four boxes promptly appearing on the front counter from nowhere. Well, Jisung reasoned with himself mentally, they must be from _somewhere_. “Pick them up one by one- you’ll know if it’s the wand for you,” she ordered.

 

Felix scurried forward to comply. The first wand did nothing at all, lying limp in his hand as much as wood can appear so. The second sparked weakly at his touch but yielded nothing further. It was the third that proved successful, not giving a show of great magic but causing Felix to sigh contentedly when he picked it up.

 

“Unicorn hair and acacia wood, eight inches: an interesting combination,” La Velle remarked, raising a bushy grey eyebrow. “A loyal wand which will work only for you and perhaps another who you trust above all. Time shall tell.”

 

She took back the wand, Felix pouting at the loss of contact, and packaged it up. Once it was safely in Felix’s bag, she turned her eyes to Jisung. “You’re an intriguing one, Mr Han,” she murmured, whether to herself or to him he wasn’t quite sure. “Wise far beyond your years and a unique blend of abilities. I know just the combination,”

 

A click of her fingers later, only one wand appeared, so sure she seemed of his wand-to-be. “What _is_ the combination?” he asked as he reached for the thin box. He could feel something emanating from within it when he picked it up, and a shiver ran down his spine.

 

“Laurel with a phoenix feather core, nine inches- an unconventional pairing of materials that I’ve tested perhaps three times and yielded no results. I have the feeling you will be different, Mr Han,” she answered.

 

“No pressure, man,” Felix joked from behind him, but he was quelled by a look in his direction from La Velle, who whipped her hair back around immediately after to stare at Jisung unnervingly as he opened the box and picked up the wand. No, not _the_ wand. _His_ wand. He felt at once that La Velle’s judgement had been entirely correct, every fibre of his being bonding with the stick of wood that looked so deceptively normal. No sooner had he felt the happiness of having something he hadn’t known he’d been missing than it was ripped away as La Velle packed it up and put it with his other purchases. He stared into space, missing Wycombe grumpily handing over money to the unpleasant wand-crafter, only coming to when Felix grabbed his wrist to pull him out of the shop.

 

Their reality came crashing in and Jisung was left dumbfounded, finally realising that as of September the next year, he would really be attending the Holborne Institute. He would get to practice his magic out in the open every single day with others, he would be taught new and exciting forms of magic and he wouldn’t be shunned for a single moment of it all. The promise of such a future was incredible, as far away as it seemed. No longer a freak, cherished for his ‘abnormality’ rather than hated and shunned, with the potential of a great many friends with the same outlook on life as him and Felix. Days before, that would have sounded impossible.

 

Wycombe escorted them back to the orphanage after collecting their pets and they returned to the familiar stifling surroundings, but with a slight difference. After a short wait in the entrance while Wycombe went inside to talk to Matron privately, the short woman told them that they needed more space to complete their studies, and showed them all to a room which definitely hadn’t existed when they’d left earlier but Matron seemed to remember as always being there. Wycombe met their eyes and silently told them not to question it. In the new room there were only two (non-bunk) beds and a desk for each of them. Matron left the three of them to it and Wycombe went about setting up the owl’s cage on a conveniently situated corner table.

 

“You two won’t be able to complete your schoolwork without attracting suspicion if you’re still in a group dorm,” Wycombe explained. “So I knocked this room together by expanding a supply closet and then compelled your Matron into believing that it had been here all along.”

 

“Thank you,” Jisung replied earnestly. He’d been worried about that very issue but hadn’t wanted to bother her with his problems after all she had already done for them.

 

“I suppose I shall see you two when I come to pick you up on September 1st,” Wycombe said as she moved towards the door to leave. “Oh, and one more thing. There’s a government tracing spell on your wands to prevent you performing magic with them out of school before the age of seventeen, so don’t practice anything with them before you arrive at the Institute, okay?” Both of them voiced their understanding, and she smiled at them. “Goodbye then, boys.”

 

Jisung felt more positive towards his future than he ever had before as he unpacked his textbooks and ‘extracurricular reading’, laying them all out on his bed so he could pick which to start first. Felix hadn’t unpacked yet, and was instead trying to coax his kitten out from underneath his bed where it had fled after being released from the carrying container.  

 

The emptiness in his chest that had prevailed for year upon year felt slightly less overbearing and inescapable to Jisung for the first time since he arrived at the orphanage. He had hope at long last.

 

It was a wonderful feeling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back with another chapter!! Thanks so much for reading, and don't forget to subscribe to either me or the fic itself to keep updated- I should be posting pretty regularly :) kudos are also appreciated i crave that sweet validation
> 
> see you soon!!
> 
> (@spearachas on twitter, come chat)


	3. Of New Beginnings

**Chapter Three: Of New Beginnings**

 

Jisung couldn’t sleep. 

 

For over an hour now, he had been staring at the blinking display of the clock next to his bed. That day had been relatively uneventful, but he had spent the majority of it cooped up in his shared room with Felix, talking excitedly and packing; it was August 30th, at least for another three minutes according to the ‘11:57’ displayed in glowing red on the digital clock. In three minutes it would officially be September 1st, his and Felix’s very first day at the Holborne Institute of Magic. He didn’t know quite how to feel, his stomach churning whenever he thought about what the following day could bring. Seeing as he had been thinking about that for hours on end, he’d spent an equal amount of time in a state of discomfort and nausea.

 

He’d no idea what to be realistically expecting. It wasn’t as if he could exactly ask anyone what their first day at a magical institution had been like, not without being branded a lunatic and sent away to a juvenile asylum. They’d had no contact from the magical world since three weeks ago, when Fairweather had appeared to take their measurements for school robes, which had appeared via owl the very next day. He’d been in and out in the blink of an eye, practically, as he “had something else to attend to”, so the boys had had no opportunity to question him about life at Holborne. Jisung had read  _ “The Holborne Institute: A Summary”  _ from cover to cover approximately thirty times, and could quote whole pages about the school’s founding members and who had designed the entrance hall in 1944 after the old one was destroyed by Grindelwald’s forces. The thin book told him little, however, about day to day life at the Institute, and nothing that would answer his burning questions. He wanted to know what the school looked like, for example, and there were no pictures. He tried to look up how he would be sorted into a house, but all the book told him was a brief definition of each.

 

_ Sapientiae, the House of Wisdom. _

 

_ Alumni from the house of Sapientiae form the pillars of wizarding society, with their intelligent minds and the capacity for rational thought. Many grow up to be great inventors and authors. Sapientiae pride themselves on intellect and a great love of learning. _

 

_ Audentia, the House of Bravery. _

 

_ Alumni from the house of Audentia often become the defenders of the people, with strong will and fierce loyalty to their friends and family. Many grow up to be aurors or pioneers in their chosen trade as their confidence in their work shines through to those investing in it. Audentia pride themselves on their courage and conviction. _

 

_ Callidus, the House of Cunning. _

 

_ Alumni from the house of Callidus make up much of the structure of wizarding society, with their flair for winning arguments with sharp minds and sharper tongues. They often grow up to become the highest ranking politicians in wizarding government as they pursue their careers with ruthless abandon. Callidus pride themselves on their sly nature and their persuasive abilities.  _

 

_ Clemens, the House of Equanimity. _

 

_ Alumni from the house of Clemens are the cogs which turn wizarding society, integral to its survival. A majority of them grow up to work in wizarding government, led often by those of house Callidus. Many also open independent businesses. Clemens are the most honorable and trustworthy in wizarding society, and pride themselves on their determination and loyalty. _

 

Jisung honestly was not sure at all which house he and Felix would be sorted into. He hoped that it would at least be the same one, as different as he must admit that their personalities were. No matter how much he tossed and turned that night worrying about the following day, it wouldn’t change a single thing that was to happen. He knew this, and yet still he lay awake, physically incapable of falling asleep despite wishing he could. 

 

11:59 blinked out of existence, replaced by 00:00, signifying the first second of his first day at the Institute. It felt like his heart was trying to claw its way out of his throat. What if he hated it there? What if everyone there hated  _ him _ ? As thick as his skin had become over the years, he wasn’t sure if he could go through putting so much hope into the concept of the Institute and then watch those hopes crash down around him. After all, that had happened with everything else he’d ever trusted in asides from his best friend.

 

Perhaps this would be different. All he could do was hope for the best. Hope was a valuable and dangerous commodity to those in a ‘home environment’ such as Jisung’s, fleeting when it made a rare appearance. It was all he could cling onto as he finally fell asleep, tossing and turning all throughout his six hours of fitful slumber.

 

6:00AM.

 

The bright red alarm clock at the side of Jisung’s bed began to beep loud and incessantly, the blaring sound cutting through Jisung’s subconscious and making him sit upright to lean over and switch it off. Looking to his left, he saw Felix also starting to get up, his friend blearily blinking sleep from his eyes and yawning. Jisung’s hand instinctively rose to cover his own mouth as he did the same in response.

 

“Morning,” Felix grumbled lowly, sufficiently woken up. His eyes then widened, remembering something important that had eluded him in his first waking moments. Considerably more animated, he exclaimed “Today’s the day!”

 

His friend’s enthusiasm was somewhat infectious, and Jisung felt the spinning whirlpool of nerves in his stomach calm slightly. They could afford to be excited, could they not? After all, they were escaping the dingy corner of New York in which the orphanage had been built, and moving to Holborne for the majority of the year. They only had to return for the summer holidays and could stay at the Institute for Christmas should they so please (they most definitely would).

 

The thought of going to public school and leaving behind the incompetent teaching at the orphanage had greatly excited Jisung before he’d known about Holborne. That anticipation paled in comparison to how he now felt. He could already control his powers fairly well; he had been able to for years. But his knowledge on how he could utilise them had already been greatly expanded in the past nine months. This was due to the textbooks he had near enough memorised, along with the extracurricular reading that had been absorbed in equal amounts. Felix was the same, really coming into his own as they sat together poring through the books in search of answers to their hundreds of pressing questions about the wizarding world. 

 

Every day, without fail, the two boys dedicated a good couple of hours to practising the magic they could do without wands. They hadn’t attempted any spells from their textbooks wandlessly in fear that doing so would set something off regardless. Jisung was itching to use his wand, and today was the day he would finally get to. As much as he and Felix had wanted to get them out every day to simply look at them longingly, the wands had stayed in their boxes. They were scared that even touching them would trigger some kind of alarm and they would find government officials rushing in to tell them that they were no longer allowed to learn magic. Although that last part was all down to Jisung’s overactive imagination, as irrational as he admitted it probably was, it was a risk he did not deem worthy to take. 

 

“Remind me again why we’re getting up at six for a ten o’clock train?” Jisung asked his friend, yawning yet again as he swung his legs out of bed, sliding his feet into his slippers.

 

“How about  _ you  _ remind  _ me _ , seeing as it was your idea and all?” Felix retaliated, standing up and walking over to the chest of drawers they shared. He rifled through the clothes they had yet to pack and pulled out a pair of their less ragged trousers along with a plain yellow t-shirt. Their clothes didn’t matter so much in that they would be getting changed into school robes on the train, but they still didn’t want to screw up their first impressions upon their classmates-to-be. They’d be going to school with these people for seven years, would grow up with them. A large part of Jisung was worried that he’d find himself on the outskirts of any and all friendships with anyone except Felix as he was at the orphanage. Even worse, he feared that his best friend would integrate himself into a new friendship group and realise that he no longer needed Jisung. 

 

“It was my idea? I have no recollection of such a thing, sounds fake to me,” Jisung joked as he joined his friend by the chest of drawers and grabbed some jeans and a black t-shirt. They got changed in the same room but with their backs turned away from one another, an unspoken code of conduct that had been in place at the orphanage for as long as either boy could remember. It was more of an illusion of privacy than anything else, but they had to make do.

 

Once suitably dressed, they began sorting clothes from the mixed up jumble belonging to both off them into separate piles on their respective beds. The sorting became somewhat of a game as they sat still and practised levitating the clothes towards them to then be folded and packed manually while the two friends chatted idly. They knew that there was an incantation to levitate things, but as they didn’t need to use it they weren’t wary of practising their talent. Actual spells weren’t allowed, but they’d gotten away with doing such things minus the words  _ ‘Wingardium Leviosa’  _ for long enough without anyone showing up to reprimand them. Felix’s cat, which he had named Nox, was chasing a floating white sock around the room when they heard a knock at their door. The sock fell, forgotten, to the floor as Felix called out “Come in!” and Nox pounced, dragging it under Jisung’s bed.

 

It was Matron, smiling at them in her usual non-convincing way. “Hello Yang, John!” she greeted them with forced cheer. “Just checking that you’re up; big day today for you two, isn’t it? You’ll both be alright getting to the train station on your own, won’t you?”

 

“Of course,” Jisung replied. It was really very irresponsible of the woman to send two eleven-year-olds traipsing around the streets of New York by themselves, but they could certainly hold their own so he wasn’t worried. Besides, it was only a thirty minute walk away- he’d slipped out of the orphanage with Felix before to scope out the route. They’d made use of the months before September 1st.

 

"Well, Cook should be serving up a delicious breakfast any minute now, so hurry along and you’ll be far ahead in the line,” Matron informed them as she bustled away, leaving the door open in her wake. Doing so was an annoying habit of hers, one which Felix corrected, waving his hand to close it without a second thought. There were now clothes strewn all over the floor from them throwing and propelling them magically at each other. Fun as it had been, they’d have to clear all of it up when they got back from breakfast.

 

“Hurry now!” Jisung encouraged his friend in a high-pitched, mocking imitation of Matron’s voice. “We simply must get to breakfast before anyone steals our rightful first place spot in line.”

 

“Oh of course!” Felix agreed, going alone with the joke. “But, didn’t you know? We’d have had to camp out in the dining hall overnight for that first place spot. Bland, overcooked food is certainly worth the wait though.”

 

They laughed unabashedly together as they raced each other at a sprint into the dining hall, finding to their great amusement that they were actually first in line. When Matron had said ‘any minute now’ about Cook serving up, she must have meant that it would be a full ten minutes before she even opened the serving hatch. Jisung pulled a pen from his pocket and drew a ‘1’ and ‘2’ on his and Felix’s hands respectively. “Proof,” he explained, still laughing. The general ‘wake up call’ bell then began to ring, signalling the hour changing to eight o’clock. It would have been seven when they rose usually, but it was Sunday so they had the option of another hour in bed. Jisung supposed that Holborne went back on September 1st no matter when that date fell, as Sunday was a rather odd day to start a new school term. 

 

They had been awake for two hours, were leaving in one hour, and had spent their time so far playing with Nox and tossing clothes around instead of actually packing for the most part, so when Cook dished out their food they wolfed it down as to get back to their task. Their toast was actually still warm for the first time ever, as they’d got to it moments after Cook had put it out on the tables. The butter melted into the bread instead of forming a thin white-yellow layer on top of it as was usual. Breakfast being semi-nice for once was an unexpected treat which Jisung chose to treat as a good omen for the day to come. 

 

Nox nearly escaped when they opened their door, but they were used to him trying to do so, so Jisung’s foot shot out instinctively to block the cat’s path as Felix scooped him up into his arms. “You’ll have plenty of space to roam free at Holborne, little one,” Felix reassured his pet as he carried him back inside. “We’re going to an exciting new place today, Noxie,” he crooned, “But you’re gonna have to stay in your carry basket for a while to get there,” The cat yowled, making Jisung wonder as he often had before just how much Nox understood of Felix’s soothing ramblings. “I know, I know, but it’ll be worth it,” his friend went on, putting Nox down on his bed.

 

“You’re such a mother hen over that cat, Felix,” Jisung remarked, gathering clothes from the floor and folding them as best he could as he packed them into his one of the two trunks that Fairweather had brought them along with their robes. He’d passed along Wycombe’s apologies that she had forgotten to take the boys to buy them as they weren’t on the list of school supplies but were nonetheless essential. 

 

“I know,” Felix paused to sneeze. “But he deserves it.”

 

“You’re allergic to the bloody thing as well,” Jisung pointed out.

 

“I’m sure there’s a potion of some sort to fix that!” Felix argued, Jisung having to accept his logic. Witches or wizards and cats were two things that had been closely intertwined in folklore for as long as either of them could remember. Allergies such as Felix’s were fairly common and given that the Institute was likely full of felines roaming around, there must be, if not an outright cure, a potion he could take regularly to lessen the effects. 

 

“Fair point,” Jisung acknowledged, lifting Nox out of his trunk as the little cat had just jumped into it, intent on making a nest from his folded clothes. “Right, you nearly done?”

 

“Yeah, just need to finish squashing all of these books into my trunk,” Felix replied, his tone teasing as most of the books he had to make room for were not his, but Jisung’s.

 

“I can’t wait until we can learn extension charms for our trunks…” Jisung sighed wistfully. “Imagine just how many books I’ll be able to fit in then.”

 

“Nerd,” Felix quipped, whacking Jisung over the head with  _ ‘112 ways to master Charms’ _ before shoving it into his own trunk. “And that’s me done!”

 

Jisung, sitting on top of his and trying to squeeze it shut, replied “Me too, almost.”

 

“Oh for goodness sake Ji, all that power and you’re resorting to shutting it by  _ sitting  _ on it?  _ Really?” _ Felix pointed out quite logically.

 

“You have a point, my friend,” Jisung acknowledged, hopping off his trunk and instead focusing on its latch until it managed to close itself. 

 

After applying what he’d learnt from his studies was his version of a ‘featherlight’ charm, though wandless and wordless, to his trunk as Felix did the same, the two of them left their shared room. In his carrier, Nox had started yowling away the second he’d been put inside, showing no signs of stopping any time soon. In contrast, Jisung’s owl, which he’d named Weili, stayed completely calm and composed. 

 

To get to the front entrance, the boys had to walk past the dining hall, in which several of their peers were still eating. Billy yelled out the cheerful farewell of  _ “Fuck off to poofter school!” _ when he noticed them passing by, and they could hear Matron chiding him as they hurried out of the front door.

 

Perhaps nerves made them walk faster than their usual pace, as it was not the predicted thirty but closer to twenty-five minutes later when the two of them made it to the train station. The tickets that Wycombe had sent them read  _ ‘Platform 13: Train to Holborne, VA at 10:00AM’,  _ and so they dutifully made their way to the designated platform. Given that it was 9:35, the train had already arrived. Jisung could only assume that Holborne wasn’t a wildly popular destination, given that the train had only one passenger carriage.

 

“Are you kids for the ‘Olborne Institute?” a beefy man in a conductor’s uniform questioned them as they drew closer. “This is a private train for the school; if yer wantin’ the area in general the next train is a’ 1pm.”

 

“Oh no, we are for the Institute,” Jisung clarified, showing his ticket, Felix brandishing his own beside him. Nodding, the conductor stepped aside, and they clambered up into the carriage. 

 

Once inside, Jisung could tell just why the conductor had felt the need for double-checking their destination. The carriage’s interior was easily double the size it appeared to be from an outsider’s perspective, that being only one of many reasons that the carriage was nothing like the norm. Instead of the rows of uncomfortable seats that most trains favoured, multiple sofas were dotted around the area, groups of students sitting together and chatting, laughing loudly as they reacquainted themselves with each other after the holidays. 

 

Jisung and Felix looked around awkwardly, eyes searching for somewhere free to sit that wasn’t smack bang in the middle of a large group of people who had clearly known each other for years. There! In the corner he noticed two large sofas occupied by only three people, who had quite obviously never met before that day as he could see them making awkward attempts at conversation that was a far cry from the boisterous yelling of other groups.

 

Nudging Felix with his elbow to get his attention, Jisung jerked his head towards the corner and the two of them made their way over. Once their trunks were safely stowed in the overhead storage lockers, they sat down on the same sofa as a slender boy with dark hair and striking eyes. Opposite them sat a boy with dyed beach blonde hair who was grinning happily as if they were all the best of friends despite the awkward atmosphere that lingered, and the third boy, who was alternating between looking around as if waiting for someone anxiously and reading a large book sitting in his lap.

 

“Hi guys! I’m Jisung and this is my friend Felix,” he introduced them with a great deal more confidence than he actually possessed. “Are you first years?”

 

The other boy on Jisung and Felix’s sofa nodded. “Yeah. I’m Joshua, by the way,” he replied. “You’re not from NYC originally either are you?” he picked up. 

 

Jisung shook his head. 

“I’m from LA and from you I’m getting… Ohio?” Joshua queried, cocking his head to the side.

 

“Good ear!” Jisung praised, surprised. “Not many people guess that right.”

 

His accented voice normally confused people to no end, as his accent was a mixture of Korean and American. He had grown up in the states after being born in Korea, but his grandmother had lived with them after the move stateside until she passed away when he was five and she only spoke Korean. Seeing as she had looked after him all day while his parents worked, his first few developmental years were spent speaking near-exclusively Korean. Though he now spoke both Korean and English fluently, his voice still showed both, leading to many repetitive explanations.

 

The blonde boy opposite them waved animatedly. “Hey, I’m Seungcheol. First year too. The guy next to me is called Minghao, though that’s all we’ve got from him as he doesn’t speak much English at all, it seems.”

 

The boy, Minghao, looked up at his name, smiling shyly before ducking his head again to look at his book, his hair falling over his eyes and shielding him from them. 

 

Felix fell into easy conversation with Joshua, while Jisung quizzed Seungcheol, who was a half-blood, about everything he already knew about both Holborne and the magical world in general. With five minutes left before the train’s departure, Minghao having been looking more and more anxious as each minute passed, his face suddenly lit up as he looked at something over their shoulders. Turning round, intrigued, Jisung saw a boy who looked to be Chinese stumbling into the carriage hurriedly, tugging a trunk behind him that was at least half his size. Minghao, who clearly knew the boy, ran over to him to help him carry it, rambling in his home tongue as they walked back together.

 

Luggage stowed, the boy sat down next to Minghao and introduced himself as Junhui. Thankfully, he spoke fluent English and could from then forward act as a translator between Minghao and the others. Once he had his friend with him, Minghao was a lot more confident and could actually speak a fair amount more English than assumed. Jisung understood him, remembering how he’d been nervous as a kid to speak English at first, even though he picked it up remarkably fast, without his parents around to correct potential mistakes.

 

A first year as well, Junhui seemed like a great guy; beyond simply being there to translate, he made interesting and intelligent conversational points of his own. After the train set off, New York speeding into the distance, their little group talked about anything and everything. Jisung learned that Seungcheol’s entire paternal line had been in Audentia, a tradition he doubted his new acquaintance would break judging by what he knew of the houses and Seungcheol’s personality. 

 

Minghao had moved over from China two years previously, and lived in the same neighbourhood as Junhui, a pureblood who had befriended him after witnessing a bout of accidental magic in the park near their houses. Though trying his best, his English was still pretty shaky so it was a great relief to be going to the same school as his friend. 

 

About three quarters of the way through the journey, the boys changed into their dark blue Holborne robes, on the left side of which was  the Institute’s crest embroidered in silver- a serpent coiled around a tree trunk. It seemed like they’d barely sat back down to talk when Jisung saw the older students, as well as an elite-looking bunch that he’d guess were also in his year, standing up and clearing away the snacks that they’d brought on with them. He jumped near out of his skin when, after the others had thrown away their wrappers, a chocolate and astonishingly lifelike frog leapt out of the bin and hopped out of a nearby window before he’d really registered it. 

 

“Such a waste,” Seungcheol muttered, unfazed. 

 

“Hey, Junhui!” one of the aforementioned ‘elites’ came over as the passengers gathered near the exit to disembark, the train slowing down into Holborne station. 

 

“Yes, Nathaniel?” Junhui replied, turning around to face him after rolling his eyes at Minghao.

 

“I was wondering why you didn’t sit with us today?” Nathaniel enquired perfectly politely, though if you looked closer, as Jisung was doing, you could see that his eyes were like shards of pale blue ice.

 

“Because I was sitting with Minghao,” Junhui answered with equal levels of chilly politeness. “He  _ is _ my best friend, after all.”

 

“Ah, how…  _ delightful. _ I wasn’t aware you were still hanging around with those sorts- from what I’ve heard your mother made that perfectly clear.”

 

At that, Minghao grabbed onto Junhui’s arm as he started forward angrily. “It isn’t worth it,” he whispered in accented English. Junhui slumped, choosing instead to glare daggers at Nathaniel as the older boy, who was perhaps fourteen, stalked away.

 

“Well, that was… something,” Felix remarked. “If you weren’t Chinese as well as Minghao I’d say he was being racist, but-”

 

“He’s a blood-purist,” Seungcheol cut in. “Because Minghao’s from a no-maj family, Nathaniel and  _ his lot _ believe that he’s not worthy of being friends with Junhui here, who is pureblooded, i.e. he’s descended only from those with magic.”

 

“Well that’s fucking stupid,” Felix retorted. 

 

Joshua nodded in agreement, “Does America really need yet another form of prejudice to be thrown into the mix?”

 

“The funny thing is,” Junhui told them, a wry smile on his face despite his lingering anger, “Minghao here has more magic in his pinky finger than half those who think they’re better than him.”

 

Minghao blushed deeply, swatting at his best friend’s shoulder. “Shut up, Jun!”

 

“I’m not lying though, am I?” Junhui retorted. Minghao stayed tellingly silent at this.

 

After several hours of the mismatched group getting to know each other, time flying past in the joy of conversation, the train came to a stop. They filed out onto the platform where a familiar face was waiting for them- Professor Fairweather, who was wearing a ridiculous assortment of “no-maj clothing”, as Jisung heard Junhui refer to it in a mutter. Atop Fairweather’s messy hair was a baby pink straw hat, and he had paired a pinstripe waistcoat with a lemon yellow polo shirt. Completing the look was an oversized pair of denim flares and heeled silver cowboy boots. Those from magical families didn’t bat an eye at his ridiculous ensemble, but those from muggle upbringing could be heard stifling their laughter. Luckily, Fairweather didn’t notice them cracking up at his expense, and lead the group of around sixty to the station’s car park, telling them to leave their luggage on the train as it would be transported directly to the Institute and brought to their dorms.

 

There, the students were ushered onto what looked like a minibus but was expanded on the inside much like the train carriage, with three seats each side of the aisle down the middle. Jisung, Felix and Joshua sat together, with Seungcheol, Minghao and Junhui opposite them. They’d picked seats near to the front, whereas the stuck-up bunch from earlier had crowded to the back row. Jisung found it interesting that the trope of ‘cool kids sit at the back’ wasn’t only a no-maj thing. Though several rows back, their words were still reasonably distinguishable from the group at the front’s position.

 

They were talking about how disappointed they were that the school was still letting in ‘scum’, a word Jisung could only guess described those of non-magical descent. He could only hope that such bigots would prove to be a minority in the Institute as a whole.

 

“So, Junhui, do you know all of that lot?” Joshua asked, striking up a conversation before one of them ended up walking to the back and punching Nathaniel in his smug, inbred face.

 

“Unfortunately so,” he affirmed. “The older years are Nathaniel Seltz, who you’ve had the  _ pleasure _ of meeting, his cousins Geoffrey and Sebastian O’Reilley and their lackeys, Donald…uh, Farren, I think his name is, and Pascal Jonns. And yes, they are all every bit as privileged as they sound. Donald and Pascal are pureblood but can’t trace their bloodline back as long as some so they’re total sycophants.”

 

“Sycophants?” questioned Joshua, asking what Felix had obviously also been wanting to, judging by the befuddled look on his face.

 

“Suck-ups,” Junhui summarised, clearing up the confusion. “Please do tell me if I’m slipping into being too posh, my mother had me speaking like a college professor from the age of five with the amount of private tutoring I had thrown at me.”

 

They all laughed, Felix adding “Don’t worry, Jisung here is a walking dictionary himself. You don’t even want to know how many times he’s read all our set texts, not to mention all his extracurricular books. I’m not as bad but he’s certainly rubbed off on me.”

 

“Has he now?” Seungcheol asked, wiggling his eyebrows lewdly and earning himself a disgusted shove from across the aisle courtesy of Jisung. 

 

“You’re vile,” Felix groaned, his attempt at a glare spoiled by the fact that he himself was laughing. “Jisungie’s like a brother to me.”

 

“You’re in wizarding society now, mate,” Junhui pointed out. “Incest is seen by many as vital to ensure their bloodline stays pure; thank god that as bigoted as my charming family are they shop outside our gene pool.”

 

“That’s so gross,” Joshua grimaced.

 

“That’s the wizarding elite for you.”

 

“Moving on from that delightful topic!” Jisung interjected, feeling a little ill. “You never did tell us about the rest of our best pals back there.”

 

“Oh, the younger years, yes,” Junhui remembered. “Nathaniel and that are in third year, and the guy on the right on his own is Im Jaebeom, he’s a second year and he doesn’t seem as bad as the others- doesn’t talk as much, at least. He’s from one of the really old families as well, even more so than Seltz and the O’Reilleys, but they won’t recognise that he’s above them cause his branch of the family only moved to the US about twenty-five years ago. Back in Asia though, people would lick dirt off his boots to get him to look their way. A few of the school will treat him like that if they’re from over there.”

 

“Interesting,” Joshua noted. “Not surprised at the casual racism from Seltz, I got that vibe from him from the start. He obviously doesn’t want to anger your family so he won’t throw slurs around, but you could see it in his eyes.”

 

“Well deduced- he called Minghao some pretty nasty words a year ago and I got my mother to send his an angry letter. Even though she thought I was the recipient of the racism not Minghao, the effect was still the same. He’s more careful with his words around us both now,” Junhui explained. It made sense- Seltz wouldn’t be holding back without good reason.

 

“And the other two?” Felix spoke up, talking about the two boys sat the row ahead of Jaebeom, who had three seats to himself- clearly not the sociable type. One boy had bright pink hair, the other ears that he’d yet to grow into.

 

“That’s Bambam and Jinyoung. Bambam’s a metamorphmagus and-”

 

“A  _ what _ now?” Joshua cut in.

 

“He can change his appearance at will,” Jisung answered before Junhui could. “Isn’t that really rare?”

 

“Pretty rare, yes,” Seungcheol confirmed. “It’s hereditary so it’s something that those who are no-maj born never have.”

 

Junhui was about to say something, but the bus slowed to a halt and was filled with excited whooping as they pulled up to a pair of tall, wrought-iron gates. 

 

“Order, everyone!” shouted Fairweather, getting up from his seat by the door next to the driver. Everyone shut up, even the guys at the back. Clearly they weren’t yet confident enough to ignore a professor. 

 

The Institute looked like any other fancy private school from what he could see so far, though Jisung wasn’t sure exactly what he was expecting, a castle surrounded by a lake? That would be ridiculous.

 

Once their professor lead them past the gate however, it was easy to distinguish the first years from the rest, as they stopped in their tracks. The purebloods, though not altogether surprised, were still clearly impressed. Stepping onto the premises had dispelled the illusion that had obviously been cast to keep prying no-maj eyes averted- in its place the building, although the same, had considerably different surroundings. 

 

A towering set of greenhouses were off to the side, and were filled with plants that were more  _ alive _ than any Jisung had seen, some swaying menacingly and others leaping around to catch passing insects. Hearing whooping from above, he looked up and saw several students speeding around on broomsticks in pursuit of a blur of gold whizzing away from them through the air, silhouetted against the setting sun.  _ It must be a snitch, _ he noted to himself, remembering reading about wizarding sports in one of his many books. Next to him, Joshua looked like he was going to pass out. 

 

“You alright, Joshua?” Jisung asked, though it was obvious that he was far from it.

 

“Y-yeah, I just- I haven’t seen any magic other than my own and the professor who came and demonstrated to my parents as proof that this place is legit. It’s a bit overwhelming if I’m honest,” he admitted, shaking his head as if to dispel his scattered thoughts.

 

Of course! Jisung and Felix had had each other, Minghao had had Junhui, and Seungcheol was half-blood. This was all a lot for Jisung to process; despite the fact that he had had another magical by his side since the age of eight, it was so much all at once, so open when he’d practised hiding his powers since he’d first discovered them. He couldn’t imagine having been alone up until now in addition to suddenly having all of this shoved in his face. 

 

Seungcheol barrelled Joshua into a hug, which succeeded in distracting him as he squirmed out of the other boy’s grasp, running away as he jokingly tried to chase him back into his arms, laughing his head off. The tension sufficiently diffused as their whole group cracked up at the sight, Jisung’s eyes wandered back to their surroundings. Asides from the boys flying through the air, there were, if possible, even more obvious displays of magic. Two guys who he mentally placed in sixth or seventh year were shooting spells at each other in a friendly duel, jumping out of the way of what Jisung recognised as fairly harmless incantations, the worst of which being  _ Stupefy _ , which didn’t even hit its target. 

 

Nathaniel’s lot were off to one side of the path, huddled together. Noticing a slight movement from one of them out of the corner of his eye, he looked over in time to see either Donald or Pascal, he couldn’t remember which was which, shooting a hex over to where Minghao stood with his back to them, talking to Junhui happily in Chinese. 

 

Not even thinking about his actions, Jisung threw a hand out and stopped the spell, it fizzling out in mid-air as it collided with not one, but two shields. By his side, Felix had also noticed the spell and cast a wandless shield, effective enough though not as strong as Jisung’s- upon noticing that his friend had leapt into action too, Felix let go of his shield. It was draining for Felix to do wandless magic, which Jisung had learnt was common. He was sure, however, that it couldn’t be that uncommon for people to be able to do it. He was unusual enough as it was with the whole elemental thing, that was quite enough on his plate.

 

And yet...

 

The courtyard had gone silent, every single student in their vicinity staring, shocked, at the scrawny eleven-year-old’s effortless display of incredibly advanced magic. Donald/Pascal, whichever he was, had his mouth ajar, gaping.  

 

“What on earth was th-” Seungcheol started to say, before he was cut off by the Institute’s doors swinging open to reveal Headmistress Wycombe.

 

“Everybody inside!” she commanded, her sweet voice amplified magically so it boomed throughout the grounds. “The sorting is about to begin.”

 

The upper years rushed in first, heading to their respective house tables and sitting down, many of them eagerly gulping down the glasses of water waiting at them. Once the flow had subsided, the first years filed into the hall, waiting in a group by the entrance as instructed by Fairweather.

 

Wycombe had made her way to her place at the centre of the staff table, but was still standing. “To those who are not used to our world,” she began, voice no longer amplified as it wasn’t necessary in the smaller space, “The sorting process may seem confusing. Therefore, I’ll explain it as concisely as I can so we may swiftly begin.”

 

Gesturing to a large stone carving of a tree on the floor in front of the doorway which Jisung recognised as the house crest, she continued. “First years, you will stand on top of the carving in front of you. After a short while, one of four stones which are embedded as fruits in the tree will glow. Amethyst is Sapientiae, topaz is Audentia, rose quartz is Clemens and opal is Callidus.”

 

Each house cheered as they were mentioned, making Wycombe pause for a moment for them to calm down. Once the whooping had subsided, she delivered her final line as she sat down: “You may begin.”

 

Fairweather stepped forward, pulling a long list from his pocket and reading the first name from it. “Choi, Youngjae.”

 

A boy who had not been on the train stumbled forward nervously, eyes flitting around the room. He looked terrified as he stepped onto the carving. 

 

A beat passed, Jisung holding his breath, his anxiety for this unknown stranger belying just how stressed he was about his own sorting.

 

The rose quartz lit up, shining far more brightly than he had been expecting. The whole room was bathed in light pink for a few seconds before it dimmed as Youngjae stepped off the carving, heading towards the Clemens table where he was greeted by loud cheers.

 

Seungcheol was next, sorted immediately into Audentia where he was greeted by many in higher years.

 

A few more passed by.

 

Jisung zoned out for a while as Faye Duncan went to Clemens and Genevieve Eden to Audentia along with Landon Farrell. Closer to his own sorting, Jisung snapped back to reality as Carl Gordon walked over to Sapientiae.

 

Then, at last, Fairweather read out “Han, Jisung.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! Thank you so much for taking the time to read the first chapter. I'm going to try to update regularly- this fic has been in the making for a while but I hit writers block for a while. Now, however, I'm really inspired so look out for lots more :)
> 
> my twitter is @spearachas, come say hi!


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